Union and Nonunion Forms of Employee Representation

Keywords: types of employee representation, workplace representation

The history of workers shows us how important unions have been; it played a key role in the past and is playing a significant role in today’s world scenarios. Unions just do not work for employees in a way they also help the employer by minimized turnover ratio, help reducing hiring and training cost associated with new employees. Because of all these reasons many times organisation prefers to have unionised set-up for employee voice preconisation. In these way the organisation save its resource and have smooth functioning in the company rather than using individualistic approach.(Freeman and Medoff 2004) tell about the positive sides of unions and say if the organisation takes proper care of it employees it can improve their performance at work place and also will motivate them. It won’t be wrong to say union offers benefits to both employees and employers. Unions helps the employees to motivate by showing them promotion ladder and implementation of the collective interest and also by showing their rights they possess in the organisation but also their relation in state and in civil society. Unions encourage its members to be part of social welfare societies and take the given advantages. (Mike Donaldson 2008) talks about the history of labour union in Australian and how and when it came to its existence in Australia in early 1911. There it joined the linkage between the families and the organisation. It also tells about the very first stepping stone of labour trade union and their activities like the lockout at mining station and creating awareness of workers union. It is very important for union to make alliances with various forms of organisation and get interconnected within the states and the local working class and maintain strong relationship with other organisations. So the union keep term with the entire non government community organisation, small business and other organisation at state level and international level to form a productive relationship. (Gregor Gall 1998) With the help of these trade union organisations the workers can create a better working environment. It also helps to build trust within the organisation. Unions give a platform to employers to make good relationship with it employees and make critical but also constructive agreements for the welfare of the employees.

(Rae Cooper, Bradon Ellem, Patricia Todd 2012) These articles talks about the new changes have been made in the Australian labour government fair work act 2009 and the restoration of collective bargaining as its main aim. The changes between 1996 and 2005 which are most important for assessing how the Fair Work Act was designed and has come to operate were those that altered bargaining arrangements and other changes which reduced union effectiveness. It briefly addressed each before dealing with the Fair Work Act itself. (Donna M. Buttigieg, Stephen J. Deery and Roderick D.lverson June 2008) article talks about the importance of union and shows us what all can go wrong without proper union in organisation. It’s based on mobilization theory were in a large data is utilized for a survey done with financial service during renegotiation of collective bargaining contract. Through this survey it was clear that the masses would follow the union as they can experience sense of injustice done to employees when they held the collectivist orientation to work organisation. Perceptions of injustice are critical for collective action as they act as a means of separating workers from the employer in terms of shared interests, particularly where blame is attributed to management.

It’s the rights of the workers to join a union or be part of the union and accompanied by union official at disciplinary and grievance hearings. A fellow worker is chosen among the workers and is made a representative in non unionised setting who is more familiar with the association and can be the spoken person on behalf of the employees. These representatives perform various role in organisation they are many a times appointed by the management who carry the information from them and pass it widely within the employees.(Patmore 2006) non union representatives are normally functions in organisations which does not requires collective bargaining. All the employees are not part of unions and many times some employees disagree with the unions as well. Employees who are non union’s members come to the representatives to take advice on legal duties or business transfers and also in situations of large scale redundancies. So she representatives help those employees who are not part of union and give them consultation on legal matters when it occurs. Many of the times these representatives are appointed by the management themselves so they can consult those employees who need them in performing legal duties and they don’t have to search for such representatives when suddenly such legal duties are arise, these also helps the employees to improve their performance and be loyal and achieve their commitment done to employer.(Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline A-M. and Shore, Lynn M 2007) The different forms of non union representatives such as Representative of health bad safety, Representative of information and consultation representative, Pension representatives, work force agreement representative etc. These forms of non union representative also work for the welfare of the employees and they are well organised and have good terms with the management as well.

Health and safety representatives of employee’s are appointed in the organisation, they are not part of any union but they are representatives who work for the health and safety issues of the employees. Under the regulation 1996 as amended in 1998, 1999 and 2005) these representatives are covered under health and safety of employees. These representatives are given proper training so that they can perform their duties well in the situation of safety and health measures, they are paid for these training programs which encourage the employees to get involved in such activites.Their main agenda is to provide better health facilities to employees at work place and maintain the safety rules. The form of non union representative is information and consultant representative who is been selected from the members of subsequent information and consultation body. These representatives have the rights to provide protection against dismissal. They have the rights to negotiate an agreement or the standard agreement under the regulations. They see to that the employees practise the following regulations and provisions established. Under the occupational and personal pension schemes (consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) regulation 2006 the representatives of pension carry out their functions in the organisation. These pension representatives are parts of union and non union forms and are elected to give consultation on issues related to pension schemes to the employees in the organisation. Under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, known as TUPE gives consultation over the transfer of undertaking. When there are no union to carry collective bargaining purposes the non union representative’s consultation under TUPE. Then we have workplace representatives in the organisations that function under the workforce agreements. These agreements are between the employer and employees were they have mutual understanding on issues like working time, maternity and paternity and fixed term employment. The union have more rights as compare to the non union representatives but both try their best to protect the rights of the employees and their should not be any injustice done to them in terms of work aagrements.These various form of non union work representatives have come up together and performing the same role of union without being part of any particular labour union organisation. With the modern times the views of people are changing and they are excepting the concept of non union representatives. There has been tremendous decline in the trade union organisations. Many countries develop as well as developing countries are encouraging the non union forms of representative. These non union representative make employees’ views known to management , help strengthen both management’s and employees’ understanding of workplace issues and other matters affecting the business, help create an atmosphere of mutual trust between employees and management and therefore improve workplace relations.( Martin Upchurch, Mike Richardson, Stephanie Tailby, Andy Danford,& Paul Stewart 2006) Non-union forms of employee representation have become increasingly encouraged at uk work place and soon the trend is started all across the globe. Many organisations are promoting and supporting the non union representatives for betterment of the employees. To improve the individual and organisational performance partnership working style has been encouraged by the new labour, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC. The article is based on the survey done in UK financial sector were interview were taken and full organisation was involved including the manager and staff. It showed the linkage between the working pattern of non union employee’s representative and the employer. The survey was based on the employee’s attitude. The result of the survey cleared showed that the non union partnership framework that was functioning in the organisation was constrained to a limited structure and because of these reason the demands of the employees was bounded.

(Paul J. Gollan 2005) the article seeks the weaker side of non union form and tried to show that these representatives have less power than unionism organisations and it more controlled by management of the organisation. With the help of analysis it showed the importance of unions in terms support and sustainability. It showed the European directive on information and consultation and how it implemented in in the UK law and its increasing focus on workplace representation arrangements. It was clearly shown that many issues were raised like effectiveness, impact and legitimacy of union because of non union representatives. There was lack of effective voice of non union form of representatives and these were the major problem at Eurotunnel. In the forthcoming implementations into UK law this perceptions of the lack of effective voices is given importance in the recent introduction of the European directive. The main implication of this case study was that he non union representative and management and the employees were not well coordinated and the representatives could not do much the of employees interest. It is essential to have effective employee voice over workplace to achieve and maintain employee’s satisfaction.

The main difference between union and non-union forms of employee representation is joint consultation between the management and employees. These help the management to understand the problems of employees and choose the appropriate solution to problems. It helps in variety of decision making and exercise of power; in contrast to unionism. It gives equal opportunity to employees to join the agreement of the employers as it’s done in unionism(Salamon, 2000) so it is more of management preference instead of employee or union’s representatives as they are the one encouraging employees , invest money on the activities in the organisation so their decisions it should be considered. The only motive is better performance and cost effective production. To remove the operational problems it very important that joint consultation method expands in organisations and these will help to make wise decision making which will even seek for the employee’s opinions. Union and non union representatives both work for the welfare of the employees in the organisation, their major motive is to give security to employees and to enhance their work performance in the organisation. These organisations also help the employers to know the need and area for betterment for the employees. But we can even denies the fact that many of the times these unions become a threat to the employers and take the undue advantage of the power were as the non union representation lack the independence and because of these there position is weaker compare to union. Both union and non union works for the betterment of employee and boost to employee’s performance.